Description

Birds of Prey is a flight simulation set in a fictional battle between the Soviet Union (B-side) and the Nato + allied (A-side).

The player can fly up to 40 different planes and also control the whole battle campaign.

Aircraft available for A-side:

BAe Hawk Mk.66

BAe Hawker Siddley Harrier GR. Mk 3

Boeing B-52H Stratofortress

Boeing 747-400 Jumbo Jet

Dassault-Breguet Mirage F.1E

Dassault-Breguet Rafale A

Fairchild A-10A

General Dynamics F-111

General Dynamics F-16

Grumman F-14A+ Tomcat

Grumman X-29

Lockheed C-130H-30 Hercules

Lockheed F-104S Starfighter

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

Lockheed TR-1A

Lockheed F-117A

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II

McDonnell Douglas F-15E Eagle

McDonnell Douglas KC-10A

McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A Hornet

North American X-15A

Northrop F-5E Tiger II

Northrop F-20A Tiger Shark

Northrop B-2 Stealth Bomber

Panavia Tornado F Mk.3 (ADV)

Rockwell B-1B

SAAB JAS-39 Gripen (Gryphon)

Aircraft available for B-side:

Antonov AN-124 Condor

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed N

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 Flogger G

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat E

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27 Flogger J

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum A

Sukhoi Su-21 Flagon F

Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer D

Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot

Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker B

Tupolev Tu-95 Bear G

Tupolev Tu-26 Backfire B

Yakovlev Yak-38 MP Forger A

The player is required to select one side 'A' or 'B' in the conflict, and keep the save game for each pilot on a separate floppy.
Each pilot you can fly different missions and aircraft, but only those from your own side.

The player character flies from three land bases and two aircraft carriers on each side, and these bases can be damaged in several ways by enemy action, making them unavailable until repaired and reducing the available aircraft in the campaign.

Mission types are:

air intercept

air superiority

long range bombing

bomber escort

close support and ground attack

border or sea patrol

reconnaissance

troop drop

supply drop

stealth bombing

stealth reconnaissance

test pilot

An autopilot mode is available for longer cruises, if the enemies are far off. The 'test pilot' mission involves flying the X-15/X-29 and is not a part of the campaign.

Forums

Trivia

Delayed release

The game was intended to release much earlier. Argonaut started to work on the game in 1988 (first with no working title, later the game was named Hawk), they even started a six part development diary in the UK magazine The Games Machine in 1989 (issues #15, #16, #18, #19 and #20), all claiming a near release. Some more times the game was announced as nearly completed in the next year, but the final release was delayed until 1991, for which the game was renamed to the release title Birds of Prey.

Development tools

As the Devpac assembler, which was used at Argonaut, turned out to be too slow for such a big project, taking 15-20 Minutes for creating the game from code, Argonaut was looking for a better development tool. They didn't moved to a PC cross-assembling platform which many other companies did at the time, but developed their own assembler "ArgAsm" ("Argonaut Assembler"). It turns out to be up to 10 times faster then Devpac. This side product of the game development was then sold as a commercial development tool.

Sequel

Even before the release of the game, publisher Electronic Arts asked Argonaut to develop a sequel, which the development company rejected, as they preferred to develop for the Nintendo consoles Gameboy and Super Famicom. Therefore a sequel was never in development.